of elf-princes and dwarf-kings
by Ralph E. Silvering
Summary: Legolas and Thorin may have only known each other a couple of days but some bonds can cross time itself. Also known as, Legolas and Thorin kick a lot of Orc-butt together.


_of elf-princes and dwarf-kings_

**Disclaimer: I own nothing from LOTR or The Hobbit. Legolas and Thorin were my favorite relationship in The Hobbit, and something I was totally not expecting. It really makes Legolas' fear at losing Aragorn make even more sense. He lost one king to the enemy, he would not lose another. I just wish they had more scenes, but that fight scene with them on the frozen waterfall was perfection itself. Just a little drabble. Enjoy!**

&…&…&…&…&…&

Legolas didn't think much of Thorin Oakenshield until the dwarf-king saved his life.

It had been a dark and busy few days before the dwarves showed up. There had been rumblings from Dol Guldor, and incursion of orcs from the north that Legolas had personally led a sortie to wipe out, and numerous waves of spiders coming up from the south. Tauriel had been left in charge of those, and she had done a fine job of wiping them up.

Legolas had made sure to tell his father that.

Thranduil was not known for acknowledging the hard work of his subjects. Or even that of his own son.

Legolas had never met Thorin when he was prince of Erebor, and had not recognized him when they met. He had recognized the sword though, and assumed they were thieves or grave robbers of some ancient Elven burial mound.

It was only when the tallest of the dwarves, the one who carried Orcrist, demanded to see King Thranduil that Legolas realized who he was.

The rumor mill ran swiftly in Mirkwood – it had to if the Elves were attempting to predict their mercurial king's moods – and by nightfall Legolas heard all about what Thorin Oakenshield had accused the elf-king of.

Privately Legolas agreed with him. You do not leave people to die; even if they were dwarves. And that was why Legolas and the Elven Guard had fought so hard to protect the dwarves as they made their escape under a hail of orcish arrows.

Legolas was used to being the swiftest. He was always out front and alone. The only one with even a hope of catching up to him was Tauriel. It was why he liked her so much. But this day not even she was able to match his speed as he caught up to the dwarves and attempted to clear a path for them.

Lightly and swiftly he jumped from head to head, taking out orc after orc. It was only when his knife got stuck in one of them that he was halted for a moment, and only when he turned around and saw an enemy at his back with a blade already through his gut, that he realized what had almost happened.

Legolas dispatched the last orc in sight and caught the gaze of Thorin Oakenshield, who was staring at him across the waves and spray of the waterfall, weaponless and questioning.

Legolas stared back and realized the dwarf-king had saved his life. Thorin Oakenshield – a dwarf who virulently hated Legolas' father, and from whom Legolas had just taken his own sword – had not hesitated to save the life of someone he had no reason to like.

Just like Legolas had risked his life to protect the dwarves.

He nodded at the dwarf-king and turned away.

And then Tauriel was at his back, saving him from being shot by another enemy, and Legolas curse himself for slipping, but told her to take the orc captive for questioning.

And the dwarves were gone.

But Legolas could not get out of his mind the dwarf-kings fierce gaze, nor the fact that he had guarded Legolas' back when the elf-prince had been alone and surrounded by enemies.

&…&…&…&…&…&

As the snows fell around Ravenhill, Legolas looked for Thorin. He knew that Tauriel would find her dwarf-prince, but if Azog was up there he would be going straight for Thorin. There was an army coming, and even if his father was once again leaving good people to die, Legolas would do his best to save them.

Thorin heard the horns of the elf-king signaling retreat and felt anger and despair warring in his heart. Fili was lying dead on the ice, snow covering his still body…but Thorin wasn't going to think about that yet. He ducked another swing from an orcish balde, and stabbed the enemy in the neck with his own, shorn off, dwarf-forged sword. He had no idea where Kili was. He needed to get to his nephew. He could not lose anyone else. He could hear Dwalin's curses echoing over the ice, and knew that he, at least, must still be alive. And he would be protecting Bilbo too.

He heard a shout over to his left, high up in the tower, as he avoided another orc, kicked out its legs and stabbed it in the eye with what remained of his sword. The voice sounded like that of the elf-woman, Tauriel. She was calling his nephew's name. She shouted again, and this time Thorin heard Kili answer back.

A great weight lifted off his heart, but as he looked ahead at the advancing orcs and realized there were too many of them to fight with a broken blade, he cursed Azog and the entire orcish race, for once again he was going to fail in protecting those he loved.

Suddenly, from above and behind, the whistling of an arrow came. It flew past Thorin and embedded itself in the orc immediately to his right. Then another came. And another.

Thorin didn't even have to look to know who it must be; the elf-king's son. Without hesitation, knowing that Legolas was guarding his back, Thorin leapt up and attacked his nearest, standing foe. Orcs were dropping like flies as, together, Legolas and Thorin cut a huge swathe through the enemy.

The elf-woman's scream just before her and the giant orc – who must have been some kin of Azog – told Thorin thing's he didn't want to think about in the heat of battle. As Legolas knocked the tower down, Thorin tried in vain to concentrate on his own fight, but sliding to the end of the waterfall, and looking down behind him to see the silver-haired elf-prince cornered by the brute, Thorin knew there was only one thing left to do.

He jabbed his broken blade as deep as it would go into the orc above him, and threw the scum over the side of the frozen waterfall, trying to aim it for the giant armored orc.

It missed him, but knocked enough of the tower down to pull the orc with it, giving Legolas a brief moment of reprieve.

As another orc loomed over the weaponless Thorin, who had no way to escape its blow except down, the dwarf-king, bruised and battered, wasn't surprised when the elf-prince threw a blade to save his life in return. What did surprise him though was the sword now embedded in his foe.

As the orc fell, Thorin held out his hand to grab the hilt, and Orcrist slid perfectly, beautifully, into his grip. Thorin looked at the gleam of its silver in the cold light of this early-winter day, and knew what the elf – taciturn and intent, where his father was all slippery words and broken promises – was saying.

The silver-haired elf-prince had found him worthy to carry the sword of Elven heroes in ages past. The dwarf-king may have fallen to madness like his grandfather, he may have left his kin to die, and been willing to start a war in the name of stupid, worthless piles of gold, but he had thrown off the madness. He was here to make it right, and it was not the end. Not yet.

Thorin Oakenshield had always done the right thing. He was a guardian of his people, a warrior and a protector. This filth had come here today to wipe out the last House of the Dwarves, but he would fail.

Thorin stood up, Orcrist a pale sheen of death before him, and saw through the falling snow, his ancient enemy.

This time there would be no escape.

&…..&…&…&…&…&

After Legolas found Tauriel, sitting in silent vigil by the young dwarf's side, he watched from the fortress' wall as the hobbit wept over Thorin's lifeless form. Azog lay in the middle of the ice, Orcrist buried to the hilt into his foul breast.

Legolas asked the dwarves who came for Kili's body to wait awhile yet. The eldest of them placed a comforting hand on Tauriel's shoulder even as tears trail down his white-bearded cheeks. "We have to bury him, lass," he told the elf, but she didn't appear to hear him.

Legolas watched as they gathered around the still body of their king, fallen on a frozen waterfall high above the battlefield, the bodies of his dead nephews not far. They knelt as they cried, in respect of a king they had followed into the jaws of death.

Legolas, who had followed him as well, waited; for what, he did not know.

He still saw in his mind the dwarf-king, handsome and stern of face, dark hair spread around him, sword gleaming against his mortal foe. It was an image reminiscent of the Heroes of the First Age, of whom Legolas had only heard stories. And, just like them, they had died, alone and forsake, far before their time.

When his father came Legolas told him that he could not go back. The Line of Durin had been all but destroyed today; great kings and princes lay dead. And all because his father had abandoned, once again, people who – while not perfect by any means, and who hadn't liked him very much – were undoubtedly on the side of good.

Legolas would not be like his father.

Tauriel had told him she wanted to be alone. She would go east, she said. So he would go west. He would seek out this man his father suggested to him, this Strider. Perhaps, in time, both he and Tauriel would heal.

&…&…&…&…&…&

He never told anyone about Thorin Oakenshield, and his guilt over failing to save his life. He never told Gimli, who became his friend, and was the dwarf-king's family. He never even told Aragorn, in whose fierce spirit and effortless majesty, Legolas saw echoes of Thorin crossed by race and time and fate.

It was only standing in the Undying Lands – Tauriel a shadow of herself, never over the loss of Kili – that Legolas realized Thorin Oakenshield would have been a friend, and that Legolas had lost not only Aragorn and Gimli, but a friend he had never even had a chance to know.

_Not lost, _he told himself. _Not Gone. Merely marching far away. _

But it was poor comfort for those left behind until the ending of time itself.

&…..&…&…&…&…&


End file.
